Radiata Pine and Taeda Pine sourcing has become challenging for buyers around the world, The East Side of South America (Brasil, Uruguay, Argentina) has been hit by heavy rains and floods for the last 2-3 months affecting dramatically the harvesting of logs in a market that is used to work with a few days of raw material in the log yard. Still many sawmills are closed or working couple days per week due to the lack of logs to cut. While in Chile the problem has been port strike that has lasted 2 and a half months already and also the fact that Chile is entering winter so log supply is less and KD capacities lower. Both scenarios have generated less volume being produced and shipped worldwide. On destination markets this has been felt with lower inventories and generating more interest that has translated into price increase. Demand overall remains just decent to low but the offer side is making noise. Couple months will need to pass to get back to normal, meanwhile all the channels are tight.
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